I wonder if my love for simple, minimal and uncluttered artwork is as much a message to self that it is time to tidy up my life as it is a symptom of my time spent in graphic design or my training as a printmaker? But I have always loved minimalism in design and architecture, even from childhood, so perhaps it is something important to the core of my being.
I think this piece, I’ll Find You In A Minute Or Two, 15th out of 50 Collages Before Christmas, is really quite clever: gently teasing the eye to consider what it is it is really seeing. Which lines are straight; how were the proportions arrived at?
The 14th piece in the project is “Did you mean that?” It features some of my favourite themes: a rook; black and white; a grid; and symbols. In this case the symbols are wingdings I set out on a grid. When I did #Collage365 I had little access to printed matter as we rarely had a newspaper or magazines so I had to create my own printed texture to fill in where newsprint would otherwise suffice. I’ve used it ever since.
And yes I did mean
I am getting confused. I know I published a post on this piece last night but it seems to have disappeared. Like the post on number 10 it will probably reappear and I will have a duplicate! There always comes a point in my time-based projects where I get into a pickle with numbering or technology or something! This one is number 13 so no surprise to get a hiccough here then.
“Can’t compare” comes from my Tidelines stream of work and uses Inktense pencils on recycled Indian ledger paper & Polycolor pencil on gessoed board. I might jokingly say it’s a bit colourful for me, but that is only because a lot of my work over the last couple of years has been minimalist drawings: these collages could get quite bold but I wouldn’t bet on it as there are a nunber of subdued ones in progress.
The 12th of 50 Collages Before Christmas is another in my series Abstract Drawings For Dummies. Its title The Ordering Machine comes from the receipt paper I found dangling from the print ordering machine at Tate Modern which I’ve used in the collage, but obviously other meanings are suggested too. I shouldn’t write too much here as the whole idea of these Abstract Drawings For Dummies is to write sufficient on the work to get the brain of the viewer involved with the content and make this explanation or commentary redundant. Both this and any content within the work is, of course, just as likely to be arty bullshit as it is to be an attempt to convey meaning and emotion. The writing round the top left corner is, however, genuine and important (or is it?)
A bit of a different direction for “They Had No Right” number 11 of 50 Collages Before Christmas, although people familiar with my #Collage365 project would recognise the style and direction. The photograph bottom right is a detail from one of my Black Squares series I did last year for the solo show I had at Black Swan Arts, Frome, this time last year,
